Doctor Alleges Pressure To Find Sunanda Pushkar's Death 'Natural'

FILE â In this Sept. 4, 2010 file photo, former Indian Junior Foreign Minister Shashi Tharoor listens to his wife Sunanda Pushkar at their wedding reception in New Delhi, India. Police say on Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, they have found the body of the wife of an Indian federal minister in a New Delhi hotel room after a controversy over her husband's alleged affair with a Pakistani journalist. Officer Rakesh Kumar says police are investigating the cause of Sunanda Pushkar's death. (AP Photo/File)

The doctor, who conducted the post-mortem on Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, has alleged that he was pressured into reporting that her death was "natural."

Sudhir Gupta, who was the forensic director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, has written a letter to the Health Minister JP Nadda, which accuses Tharoor and AIIMS director MC Mishra for having "tacit understanding" to make a "tailor-made" post-mortem report.

“I was asked by Dr Mishra to give a post mortem report of late Sunanda Pushkar as natural death which was contrary to the findings,” he said in his letter dated May 28, PTI reported on Tuesday.

Pushkar was found dead in her room at the Leela Palace hotel in Delhi on Jan 17, 2014. It was widely believed that Pushkar had committed suicide until the Delhi police filed a murder case in January, 2015.

“The Institute would like to categorically state that there were no extraneous pressures ever put on Prof. Sudhir Kumar Gupta with regard to his medical opinion for any case," it said.

“Allegations being levelled against the Institute in the media by Prof. Gupta in this regard are baseless and denied," it said.

But Gupta's version was backed by Adarsh Kumar, another doctor who was on the panel which conducted the post-mortem. Adarsh also said that the panel was told to find Puskhar's death as "natural," PTI reported.